Forman was an important component of the Czechoslovak New Wave. His 1967 film The Firemen's Ball, on the surface a naturalistic representation of an ill-fated social event in a provincial town, was seen by both film scholars and authorities in Czechoslovakia as a biting satire on Eastern European Communism. As a result, it was banned for many years in Forman's home country.

Along with future favorite cinematographerMiroslav Ondříček and longtime schoolfriend Ivan Passer, Forman filmed the silent documentary Semafor about Semafor theater.[3] Forman's first important production was the documentary Audition whose subject was competing singers.[4] He directed several Czech comedies in Czechoslovakia. However, during the Prague Spring and the ensuing 1968 invasion, he was in Paris negotiating the production of his first American film.[5] His employer, a Czech studio, fired him, and he then decided to move to the United States.[6] He moved to New York, where he later became a professor of film at Columbia University in 1978 and co-chair (with his former teacher František Daniel) of Columbia's film department.[5] One of his protégés was future director James Mangold, whom Forman had mentored at Columbia.[7]

Black Peter (film) is one of the first movie of the Czechoslovak New Wave and the debut of the Feature film its the main representative.
It won the Golden Leopard award at the Locarno International Film Festival.
Reality movie of a few days in the life of a Czech teenager when he starts work. In Czechoslovakia in 1963, an aimless youth named Petr (Ladislav Jakim) begins his first job as a security guard in a busy self-service supermarket; unfortunately, he's so shy that even when he sees shoplifters, he can't bring himself to confront them. He's similarly tongue-tied around the lovely Asa (Pavla Martinkova), and during the lectures about personal responsibility and the dignity of labor that his blustery father (Jan Vostrcil) regularly delivers at home.

A 1967 Czechoslovak–Italian co-production, this was Forman's first color film. It is one of the best–known movies of the Czechoslovak New Wave. On the face of it a naturalistic representation of an ill-fated social event in a provincial town, the film has been seen by both film scholars and the then-authorities in Czechoslovakia as a biting satire on East European Communism, which resulted in it being banned for many years in Forman's home country.[8] The Czech term zhasnout (to switch lights off), associated with petty theft in the film, was used to describe the large-scale asset stripping that occurred in the country during the 1990s.[6]

The first movie Forman made in the United States, Taking Off won the Grand Prix at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival. The film starred Lynn Carlin and Buck Henry, and also featured Linnea Heacock as Jeannie. The film was critically panned and left Forman struggling to find work.[4] Forman later said that it did so poorly he ended up owing the studio $500.[5]

In the late 1950s, Forman and Josef Škvorecký started adapting Škvorecký's short story Eine kleine Jazzmusik for the screen. The script, named Kapela to vyhrála (The Band Won It), tells the story of a student jazz band during the Nazi Occupation of Czechoslovakia. The script was submitted to Barrandov Film Studios. The studio required changes and both artists continued to rewrite the script. Right before the film started shooting, the whole project was completely scrapped, most probably due to intervention from people at the top of the political scene, as Škvorecký had just published his novel The Cowards, which was strongly criticized by communist politicians.[15] The story Eine kleine Jazzmusik was dramatized as a TV film in the 1990s.[16] In the spring and summer of 1968, Škvorecký and Forman cooperated again by jointly writing a script synopsis to make a film version of The Cowards. After Škvorecký fled the Warsaw Pact invasion the synopsis was translated into English, but no film was made.

In the early 1990s, Forman co-wrote a screenplay with Adam Davidson. The screenplay, titled Hell Camp, was about an American-Japanese love affair in the world of sumo wrestlers. The picture was funded by TriStar Pictures and cancelled just four days before shooting because of the disapproval of the Japan Sumo Association, while Forman refused to make the changes requested by the association.[15]

In the early 2000s, Forman developed a film project to be titled Ember, adapted by Jean-Claude Carrière from Hungarian novelist Sándor Márai’s novel. The film was about two men in the former Austria-Hungary Empire from different social backgrounds who become friends in military school and meet again 41 years later. Forman cast Sean Connery and Klaus Maria Brandauer as well as Winona Ryder. Several months before shooting, Sean Connery and the Italian producer had a disagreement and Connery withdrew from the project. Forman was so convinced that Sean Connery fit the role that he didn’t want to shoot the film without him and cancelled the project a few days before the shooting was due to start.[15]

In the late 2000s, the screenplay for Ghost of Munich was written by Forman, Jean-Claude Carriere, and Vaclav Havel (the former Czech president and writer, who had studied at school with Forman), inspired by the novel by the French novelist Georges-Marc Benamou. The story takes a closer look at the events that surrounded the Munich Agreement. The role of the French Prime Minister was supposed to have been played by the French actor Mathieu Amalric with his older self played by Gérard Depardieu. However, the production company Pathé was not able to fund the project.[15]

In Forman's hometown, there is a cinema bearing his name – Kino Miloše Formana (Cinema of Miloš Forman). It is not directly connected with him, but as a prominent native, his legacy has been honored. The cinema has seventeen rows and a total of 199 seats, including 8 double seats for couples. The doubles are still not quite common in such small cinemas. Between 2011 and 2013, the cinema was gradually renovated. In particular, there was a change of seats, floors and new modern air-conditioning was introduced. There was also a new possibility of screening in 3D. The investment was around three million Czech crowns (US$120,000) to that date.

Forman was born in Čáslav, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), the son of Anna (née Švábová), who ran a summer hotel. When young, he believed his biological father to be Rudolf Forman, a professor.[18]

Both Rudolf and Anna were Protestant. During the Nazi occupation, as a member of the anti-Nazi Underground, Rudolf Forman was arrested for distributing banned books, and died while being interrogated by the Gestapo in the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, in 1944.[19][20] Forman's mother had died in Auschwitz in the previous year.[21] Forman said that he did not fully understand what had happened to them until he saw footage of the concentration camps when he was 16.[20]

Forman was subsequently raised by two uncles, and by family friends.[22] His older brother, Pavel Forman, a painter 12 years his senior, immigrated to Australia after the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.[3] Forman later discovered that his biological father was in fact a Jewish architect, Otto Kohn, a survivor of the Holocaust;[21][23] Forman was thus a half-brother of the mathematician Joseph J. Kohn.[3]

Forman's first wife was Czech movie star Jana Brejchová. They met during the making of the movie Štěňata (1957). They divorced in 1962. Forman had twin sons with his second wife, Czech actress Věra Křesadlová. They separated in 1969. Their twin sons, Petr and Matěj Forman (born 1964), are both involved in the theatre.

Forman married Martina Zbořilová on November 28, 1999. They also had twin sons, Jim and Andy (born 1999).[5]